The Landship Committee was a small British committee formed during the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

to develop

armoured fighting vehicle An armoured fighting vehicle (British English) or armored fighting vehicle (American English) (AFV) is an armed combat vehicle protected by vehicle armour, armour, generally combining operational mobility with Offensive (military), offensive a ...

s for use on the Western Front. The eventual outcome was the creation of what is now called the

tank A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engine; ...

. Established in February 1915 by

First Lord of the Admiralty First Lord of the Admiralty, or formally the Office of the First Lord of the Admiralty, was the title of the political head of the English and later British Royal Navy. He was the government's senior adviser on all naval affairs, responsible f ...

Winston Churchill Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...

, the Committee was composed mainly of naval officers, politicians and engineers. It was chaired by Eustace Tennyson-d'Eyncourt,

Director of Naval Construction The Director of Naval Construction (DNC) also known as the Department of the Director of Naval Construction and Directorate of Naval Construction and originally known as the Chief Constructor of the Navy was a senior principal civil officer res ...

at the Admiralty. For secrecy, by December 1915 the name was changed to "the D.N.C.'s Committee" to disguise its purpose.

Formation

The committee was formed at Churchill's instruction in February 1915, in part from ideas by Colonel Ernest Swinton, who was then employed as a war correspondent for HM government, and by Maurice Hankey, Secretary of the Committee for Imperial Defence, who wrote Churchill a missive on 26 December 1914. Churchill on 5 January 1915 disclosed the Committee notion to Prime Minister

H. H. Asquith Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith (12 September 1852 – 15 February 1928) was a British statesman and Liberal Party (UK), Liberal politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1908 to 1916. He was the last ...

by letter in which he wrote: The committee started with only three members: d'Eyncourt, as chairman; Flight Commander

Thomas Hetherington Major Sir Thomas Chalmers Hetherington, (18 September 1926 – 28 March 2007), better known as Sir Tony Hetherington, was a British barrister. He was Director of Public Prosecutions of England and Wales from 1977 to 1987, and was the first head ...

of the

Royal Naval Air Service The Royal Naval Air Service (RNAS) was the air arm of the Royal Navy, under the direction of the Admiralty (United Kingdom), Admiralty's Air Department, and existed formally from 1 July 1914 to 1 April 1918, when it was merged with the British ...

Armoured Car Squadron; and Colonel Wilfred Dumble of the Naval Brigade. Hetherington had proposed a large wheeled landship, estimated to weigh some 300 tons. A former Royal Engineer, Dumble had managed the London Omnibus Co. and been brought back to service in response to the urgent need for transport by the Royal Naval Division in Antwerp; he had been an adjutant to Colonel R. E. B. Crompton, who was trying to develop cross-country vehicles for the Army. Dumble recommended Crompton to the committee as an expert on heavy traction. The committee's activities were concealed from Kitchener at the

War Office The War Office has referred to several British government organisations throughout history, all relating to the army. It was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, at ...

, the Board of the Admiralty, and the Treasury, all of whom were expected to block the project. Experiments were performed on the grounds of

Hatfield House Hatfield House is a Grade I listed English country house, country house set in a large park, the Great Park, on the eastern side of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, England. The present Jacobean architecture, Jacobean hous ...

, the home of the Marquess of Salisbury.Hochschild, Adam, "To End All Wars"
''pg. 186''

Tank development

The Committee conducted a number of trials with various wheeled and tracked vehicles, and work was in progress on a prototype vehicle (later to become

Little Willie Little Willie was a prototype in the development of the British Mark I tank. Constructed in the autumn of 1915 at the behest of the Landship Committee, it was the first completed tank prototype in history. ''Little Willie'' is the oldest surv ...

) when in July 1915 the Committee's existence came to the attention of the War Office. This led to its operations being taken over by the Army and a number of its members transferring from the Navy. From December, 1915 the word "tank" was adopted as a codename for the vehicles in development, and the Landship Committee became known officially as the Tank Supply Committee.

Tank deployment

The tank was first deployed to the

battle of the Somme The Battle of the Somme (; ), also known as the Somme offensive, was a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British Empire and the French Third Republic against the German Empire. It took place between 1 July and 18 Nove ...

in September 1916.

Immediate aftermath

In 1919 the Royal Commission on Awards to Inventors held a session to determine the inventor of the tank.

Footnotes

Bibliography

* Hankey, Maurice
''The Supreme Command, Volume I (1914-1918)''
London: Allen 1961 * * Encyclopædia Britannica.
Admiralty Landships Committee
'. Retrieved 8 July 2012. * Fletcher, David; Harley, Dick. ''Tankette'', Volume 15, Issue 6. * Glanfield, John. ''The Devil's Chariots'', 2001. * Stern, Albert. ''Albert Stern Papers'', Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, King's College London. * Sueter, Murray. ''The Evolution of the Tank'', 1937. * Swinton, Major-General Sir Ernest D. ''Eyewitness'' Doubleday, Doran & Co, (1933) * Hochschild, Adam
''To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion: 1914-1918''
Boston: Houghton, 2011